Newday

Associate Professor Sukhbir Sandhu is the Executive Director for the Centre of Workplace Excellence (CWeX) at the University of South Australia. The environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues that she researches include both local challenges (e.g., reducing single use plastic waste in South Australia, reviving regional areas in Australia through circular economy) and global challenges (e.g. working with farmers in developing countries to protect ecosystems, driving sustainability in multinationals).

She has contributed to alleviating these complex ESG problems by becoming a “boundary spanner” – publishing in top tier management journals and in highly-ranked practitioner journals, ensuring that her work simultaneously impacts academics and practice. Her work has appeared in leading outlets such as the Administrative Science Quarterly and Harvard Business Review. She has also published three best-selling books on ESG.

Associate Professor Sandhu’s work has been featured in more than 80 newspaper and magazine articles (including The Australian Financial Review, The Australian and The National Geographic), in podcasts, the ABC, SBS and in the Adelaide Writer’s Festival.

At Newday, Sukhbir will share her latest research on how to be a wise leader (“From Knowledge to Wisdom”). Never have we expected more of leadership—and never have we been so disappointed. In a world where change is the only constant she will discuss how leaders can restore and renew their organisations by focusing on wise leadership to address wicked problems.

Matthew Wright-Simon is delighted to be working with the Newday Leadership team, working alongside Katrina in curating and designing and hosting summits, labs and our recent eSeries. As he has done since 2018, Matthew will link the intimacy of what's shared with the big picture and the events that shape our lives as leaders.

Matthew's purpose is to creatively stimulate, facilitate, engage and activate people to contribute to positive social, environmental and economic impact – and to have a lot of fun in the process!

Matthew's diverse commercial work with engagement consultancy, Ecocreative, is informed by his roles in thought leadership, philanthropy and conservation with TEDxAdelaide, the Awesome Foundation and Landscape Partnerships, an environmental NGO he co-founded several years ago.

In 2019, Matthew co-founded Double Denim, a sustainable textiles social enterprise that benefits a women's homelessness service. This is one of several social enterprise ventures he helps lead, complemented by his role on the board of the South Australian Social Enterprise Council peak body. In 2019-20, Matthew was voted as one of Pro Bono Australia's Impact 25 for his contribution to social and environmental advocacy and enterprise in Australia.

Katrina Webb is recognised and acknowledged for her unique athleticism and outstanding success as a Paralympic athlete. She has won Gold, Silver and Bronze medals in athletics at three Paralympic Games.

She was the first torch bearer to enter the Olympic Stadium for the Opening Ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Paralympic Games and in 2006 Katrina was selected to present on behalf of the International Paralympic Committee to the United Nations in New York.

To add to this she has walked the Kokoda track and has trekked to Basecamp Everest. Katrina was selected as one of two Paralympians Ambassadors for the International Paralympic Committee at the London and Rio Paralympic Games. She was a reporter with Seven at the Tokyo Paralympic Games and Nine at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games

Katrina is an international speaker, leadership and personal mastery consultant, trainer in wellbeing and resilience, a physiotherapist and also the founder and director of Newday.

Professor Magda Nenycz-Thiel is the Industry Growth Professor at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, where she leads pioneering research into category and industry growth. Previously, she served as the Mars Professor of Marketing and directed the Mars Marketing Lab, a research and development initiative funded by Mars Incorporated. She now heads the Industry Growth Initiative, working closely with a research team to apply evidence-based insights that enhance how organisations invest in growth.

Magda’s expertise spans category growth, e-commerce, and neuromarketing, with her work published in leading journals such as the Journal of Advertising Research, European Journal of Marketing, and Journal of Business Research. She also contributed two chapters to How Brands Grow Part 2, focusing on building physical availability and online shopping. A sought-after speaker, she regularly presents to both academic and industry audiences at national and international conferences.

Like many who grew up in the Khumbu (Everest region), Tashi comes from a long line of mountaineers. His grandfather died tragically in an avalanche and despite the risks Tashi’s father followed into the family business working on ascents of Everest and many other peaks.

Tashi however started out on a different path before succumbing to the call of the mountains. He was a buddhist monk for 14 years where he specialised in being a medic at Kopan monastery in Kathmandu and received a degree in community health work.

Life in the mountains was a natural fit for Tashi. He started guiding treks in 2007 and three years later he moved on to the big mountains. Since then he has summited and guided Mt. Everest seven times, several 7000m and 6000m mountains in Nepal and Europe. Tashi is a certified professional #UIAGM/IFMGA Mountain Guide with a Diploma in Mountain and an Instructor of Nepal National Mountain Guide Association and Nepal Mountaineering Instructor Association. In 2025, Tashi lead the Nepal Academy to a historic academic summit of Himlung Himal.

Alex is the global programs director at 4 Day Week Global, a nonprofit devoted to bringing the 4-day week to the world. Its trial programs in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere have been the subject of international attention.

His work has been written about in the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Financial Times and the Guardian.

Alex is the author of four books, including Shorter: How Working Less WIll Revolutionise the Way Your Company Gets Things Done; Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less; and The Distraction Addiction. Together, these books have been translated into more than twenty languages.

At Newday, Alex will speak about the 4-day week, the future of work, and how deliberate rest makes creative careers more productive and sustainability. Alex consults with companies and individuals who want to learn how to over-perform without overworking.

Damon is the co-founder and creative director of Regen Studios. THAT SUGAR FILM was Damon’s first feature length film as a director and won Best Documentary at the Australian AACTA awards and became the highest grossing Australian documentary of all time at the cinema.

Damon’s next film, 2040, is an innovative feature documentary that explores what the future would look like by the year 2040 if we embraced the best solutions already available to us to improve our planet.

Regenerating Australia is his most recent project which is touring Australia since March 2022. It is a 17-minute documentary based on a four-month ‘listening campaign’ with a diverse group of Australians who shared their hopes and dreams for the country’s future. It is a new story for our nation: a story of empowerment. A story of solutions. A story of regeneration.

An in demand thought leader and keynote speaker, at Newday, Damon will share ideas that can renew, regenerate and heal our planet’s social & eco systems.

With a client book of Fortune 500 and ASX Top-20 companies, Darren Hill is one of Australia's most in-demand strategists whose culture change programs have rolled out across PepsiCo, Toyota, Laminex and Suncorp to name a few. Rather than simply teach theory to his client base, Darren has also co-founded and built a company, Pragmatic Thinking, that listed 3 consecutive years on the Australian Financial Review FAST 100.

Darren's a best-selling author whose work has appeared regularly across the Fairfax Group (including the SMH & The Age), News Limited and is a return guest on The Today Show and Sky Business News for his views on business leadership and workplace culture.

Equally comfortable delivering keynotes to thousands of people, deep strategy work at a board level or delivering world-leading virtual experiences, Darren’s clients consistently describe him as grounded and refreshingly real – something that’s reflected by his ongoing re-engagement rate with clients nearing 100%.

At Newday, Darren will share insights into the moments that matter and how small effort can achieve huge impact. He will unpack how leaders can renew by creating and planning for moments that will carry weight inside your organisation for years to come.

Jean is the founding CEO and President of Virgin Unite, a non-profit foundation set up to unite people and entrepreneurial ideas. Jean has helped corporations put the wellbeing of people and the planet at their core. She’s worked with more than 25 Virgin businesses across 15 industries to help embed purpose in everything they do. She also served as a Partner in the Virgin Group leading their people strategy.

Prior to Virgin, Jean spent 18 years working in six continents to start and help lead mobile phone companies in South Africa, Colombia, Bulgaria, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and the US. She was the joint CEO of Virgin Mobile in Australia before starting Virgin Unite.

Jean has long explored the overlap of the business and social sectors, including working for the Foundation for National Parks and Wildlife in Australia. She’s also worked in numerous volunteer roles, such as a year-long stint as a VISTA volunteer where she worked with and learned from homeless teens in Chicago.

Guided by a belief that deep connections of all kinds can help people to achieve something bigger, Jean and a great group of partners formed the not-for-profit initiative, Plus Wonder. Over the past 15 year, Plus Wonder have interviewed 60 extraordinary partnerships like President and Rosalynn Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Leah Tutu, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield to name a few.

At Newday, Jean will share Plus Wonder's unique framework, The Six Degrees of Connection, which can help everyone renew and build and deeper relationships, find their true purpose, and make a difference in the lives of others.

Jack Kanya Kudnuitya Buckskin is a proud Kaurna and Narungga man who has dedicated his life to learning and passing on the knowledge and language of the Adelaide Plains to future generations of Kaurna people. He also inspires people to the language and country of his people (Kaurna miyurna).

As a child, Jack grew up on a diet of family and football in the northern Adelaide suburb of Salisbury, before life-changing events led him on a new path, a story told in the acclaimed documentary, Buckskin. Jack is now an iconic leader of the revitalisation of Kaurna language and culture, including through song and dance with Kuma Kaaru Cultural Services.

Jack Buckskin believes that as Kaurna language has come from the land, this is the only place in the world you will find it; it was in the country before we were born and it is our duty to ensure it continues by learning and using it together.

Jack’s leadership embraces the spirit of renewal and his pragmatic approach to making this a reality is truly inspiring. We are delighted to have him share this with us at ReNewday.

Dr Neralie Cain is the Director and principal Clinical Psychologist at NLC Psychology. Over the past 15 years, she has developed a special interest in psychological treatments for insomnia and other sleep problems, and in her clinical work she has applied this knowledge to help individuals from the age of 2 to 92 to learn to sleep better.

Neralie has given presentations at local, interstate, and international conferences and workshops, and has authored a number of peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters in the areas of child and adolescent sleep.

At Newday, Neralie will discuss why we still feel tired and burnout post-pandemic, how Covid-19 has impacted our sleep and why having good sleep is vital for leaders. She will also share other evidence based tools to help us restore, reflect and renew to help us lead for the greater good.